Three Pictures of Us

In the first one we're lying

together on the hammock, sun sliding

over the planes of our faces, mine glowing

pale like the moon, yours burnished olive, radiant

and warm (I like to think I got a lot from you,

but your skin wasn't one). I don't know who's

taking the photo- my dad, probably- but we're both

grinning and looking at them- me out of the corner

of my eye, bathed in pre-teen awkwardness, and you

full-on, your head resting on my shoulder.

On your face you cradle the light like a child

cupping water, and in your eyes is love,

love, love.

.

In the second one, we're seated

on a rocky slope by the ocean, on a day

so cloudy the sky looks white. A little red

lighthouse stands behind us, the tower beside it

blending with the fog like a ghost. I can still

smell the salt in the air, the waves pulling out

with a great lofty exhale before crashing again

on the slick darkened rock of high tide.

.

You're laughing in this one, probably at something

I said, as I'm leaning my head on your shoulder.

The blurry orange date on the photo says 2005 8 24,

prime tourist season in Maine, but behind us

the landscape is bare- likely because

of the weather (but I like to think that on the final

clicking flash, on the inhale of our giddy breath,

everyone else ceased, for one moment, to exist.)

.

In the last one we are standing, backs

to the camera, facing out over a rocky promontory,

trees stretched out below us like a patchwork

green blanket. The photo-taker is far away this time,

secretive, and neither one of us is aware we are being

watched, captured in this candid moment.

We stand close together on the very edge

of the precipice and at the moment the shutter

snaps, you turn and say something to me, your hand

resting on my lower back.

.

It's resting there still,

in a frame beside my writing desk, and

each time I look at it, I imagine

I can still feel that gentle touch and the

words that might have gone with it.

.

You who are of me and not me, you might be saying expansively, biblically,

take me places I have never been, give me

a second life worth watching unfold.

.

or, simply:

Look out there- you see that thing you fear and want

and cannot speak, that noiseless sound in your heart?

Chase it.

.

Do this in memory of me.